SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is migrating a legacy application to AWS. The application requires a shared file system that can be mounted by hundreds of EC2 instances across multiple Availability Zones. The file system must provide high throughput and low latency. Which storage solution meets these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse Amazon EBS multi-attach with a true shared file system, overlooking its single-AZ limitation and low instance count cap, while also underestimating EFS's ability to handle hundreds of concurrent NFS clients across multiple AZs with provisioned throughput.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Use Amazon EFS with provisioned throughput.
Amazon EFS with provisioned throughput is the correct choice because it provides a fully managed, scalable, shared file system that can be mounted by hundreds of EC2 instances across multiple Availability Zones simultaneously. It uses the NFSv4.1 protocol, delivers high throughput and low latency, and allows you to provision throughput independently of storage size to meet performance requirements.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use Amazon EBS with a multi-attach enabled volume.
Why it's wrong here
EBS multi-attach supports limited instances (typically up to 16) and is not suitable for hundreds of instances.
- ✓
Use Amazon EFS with provisioned throughput.
Why this is correct
EFS provides a shared NFS file system that scales throughput and is accessible across AZs.
- ✗
Use Amazon S3 with S3 File Gateway to present as a file system.
Why it's wrong here
This adds latency and complexity; S3 is object storage, not a POSIX file system.
- ✗
Use Amazon FSx for Windows File Server with a single file system.
Why it's wrong here
FSx for Windows is designed for Windows-based workloads, not general Linux.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
This SAP-C02 question is part of Courseiva's 1,660-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SAP-C02 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the SAP-C02 exam.